The surprise of having the Croats, whom they had been forcing back left and right, suddenly show such massive competence, not to mention military intelligence and supplies, had driven the Serbs to the bargaining table. At Wright-Patrick Air Force Base, outside of Dayton, Ohio, the Serbs had been forced to sign the Dayton Accords, fixing the borders of their country and those of the Bosnians and Croats and permitting an “Implementation Force,” IFOR, to enter the various countries and enforce peace on all sides.
So when IFOR arrived, the obvious place for it to set up was Herzjac, one of the most embattled towns in the war.
IFOR consisted of an American mechanized infantry or armor division, depending upon what was available to deploy, along with a large number of “allied” support personnel. When the Americans arrived, as Americans do, they had first set up a large and virtually impregnable camp in a manner very much like the Roman Legions. But they were in the country to do far more than just enforce peace. The “nation builders” among the State Department, and the military, quickly went to work trying to “rebuild the local economy.” Besides letting contracts to local firms for everything from laundry service to construction, they set up a market outside the base. Since the base was named Eagle Base, they naturally named it Eagle Market. It was something of a flea market, initially selling everything from cheap Southeast Asian electronics to shoes. Security was provided by the U.S. military and it quickly was recognized as the most secure such market in Eastern Europe.
It was that security that drew the slavers. Just like drug dealers, slavers had their conflicts. Fights over bad deals, fights over the girls, fights over “turf,” fights over bad blood between different ethnic groups or clans. But in Eagle Market, they were on neutral territory. The U.S. military prevented the conflicts from getting out of hand.
The military quickly became aware of what was going on and a very covert discussion broke out. On one hand, the chain of command was horrified. Slavery, especially slavery of rather young and almost invariably pretty to beautiful girls, was against everything the U.S. military believed in. The motto of the Special Forces is De Opresso Liber: To Liberate the Oppressed. But it was a motto that any American fighting man, or woman, would agree with. However, short of eliminating the slave trade, there was no way to stop the dealing from going on. And at least in Eagle Market the military could prevent the worst of sins being committed against them.
So a tacit “ignorance” existed, with American MPs strolling past men with strings of girls, bluntly, for sale. It was uncomfortable on many levels, especially since many if not most of the hookers in Herzjac, whose primary customer base were the enlisted men and officers of IFOR, had passed through Eagle Market. But the situation was still maintained.
As the plane rolled to a stop outside of an outlying hangar, a Mercedes sedan pulled up alongside. Before the customs vehicle could reach the plane, a man in a suit stepped out carrying a briefcase.
Mike saw the sedan inbound and by the time the plane stopped he had the hatch undogged. As the man reached the plane, he flipped down the stairs and stepped back.
“Mr. Duncan,” the man said, stepping up into the plane and setting his briefcase on the front seat. “I’m Charles Northcote, the IFOR liaison at the American embassy in Sarajevo.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Mike said, frowning curiously.
“I have your documents here,” the man continued, pulling out a manila envelope and handing it to Mike. “I think you’ll find they’re all in order.”
Mike frowned again and opened up the envelope, spilling it out on one of the seats. There was a diplomatic passport in the name of Michael Duncan along with various secondary IDs. A Florida driver’s license, American Express, Visa and hotel “frequent user” cards. All the usual things that a frequent traveler would carry.
He dumped out his pockets and started changing out materials as Mr. Northcote continued to speak.
“You’re checked in to the Hotel Krcelic. It’s a pensione in Herzjac on a side street. I’ll take you there and drop you off after I deal with customs. Mr. Dukhovic is going to meet you there this evening. He’s a former slaver who now does various odd jobs for the embassy.”
“An intel source?” Mike asked. “I don’t want to burn one of your sources.”
“Your cover is that you’re a State Department official investigating the slave trade,” Mr. Northcote said. “It’s well known that Mr. Dukhovic is a source for us. He also is a source for the French, the British, the Russians, what have you.”
“Well, we’re not investigating the slave trade,” Mike said, finishing switching his documents and putting his “real” stuff in the open envelope. “Are you briefed on what I’m here for?”
“Fully,” Northcote said, smiling faintly. “I’m the Bosnian Station Chief. And I’ve got my other sources looking as well. I think it’s a long ball play, but sometimes they go right. Oh, and on that subject,” he continued, dipping back into his attaché case and pulling out a device covered in wires. “This is a Geiger counter. There’s an earbud that can be run up through your clothing. Not entirely invisible, unfortunately, but unobtrusive. The detector goes down your arm and the counter clips to the waist.”
“Perfect,” Mike said, taking the device.
“I’ll go talk to customs while you get the rest of your gear in order,” Northcote said, handing him a card. “By the way, technically diplomats are not to be armed. But since you also cannot be arrested, or even detained, carrying is not an issue. Just don’t carry anything that can’t be concealed. If you run into shooting trouble, call me and I’ll call in IFOR. They have an alert team standing by in support, and we have nuclear specialists who are currently in Germany but can be here in a couple of hours. I’ll go take care of customs.”
Mike dumped the detector in his jump bag and took the envelope to the cockpit.
“The gentleman is going to be clearing me through customs,” Mike said to the pilot. “Hang onto this for me and put it in a secure location on the plane. As long as it doesn’t leave the plane, it doesn’t come to the attention of customs, right?”
“Yes,” Hardesty said uncertainly.
“You’ve got a manifest, right?” Mike said. “The name of the passenger is now ‘Duncan, Michael.’ ” Mike handed him his new passport and smiled thinly. “Bosnian customs will know damned well that’s not my name and not make an issue of it. But from now through the end of the charter, that’s the name.”
The pilot regarded the passport warily, but opened it up and noted the data on a pad.
“This is… rather irregular,” he said, then shrugged. “But you don’t jolly well get diplo passports if you’re a drug dealer.”
“Nor do you if you’re CIA or any of the rest of the alphabet,” Mike said, taking his passport back. “I don’t know when I’m going to be leaving. Give me a number I can call you at and you’ll have to be on call. So… stay off the sauce, if you will.”
“We’d planned on that, lad,” Hardesty said, handing him a card with his cell phone number on it. “No idea at all where we’re going next?”
“Hopefully I’ll find out here,” Mike replied.
Chapter Three
The Hotel Krcelic was similar to other pensiones Mike had stayed in. Pensiones were somewhere between a “regular” hotel and a bed and breakfast. Most resembled ancient inns and many of them dated from the Middle Ages. This one was in an old limestone-block building with vaguely baroque architecture that probably dated to the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The interior was heavy wood and dark, but the second-story room, one of only six in the whole “hotel,” was well lit by a southern window. The bed was heavy wood with two eiderdown mattresses; in cold weather the upper mattress acted as a quilt and sleeping in one was like being wrapped in silken warmth. Mike looked at the bed longingly — he was on about forty hours of straight ops at this point — then hooked up the Geiger counter with the receiver run down his left arm and went down to the bar.